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Would you prefer to be a child today than the era you grew up in?

24

Comments

  • #32
    murpho999
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 28,783 ✭✭✭✭murpho999


    Much rather my era than now

    I think kids are over protected nowadays due to parents thinking there are paedophiles on every corner. Schools with parents in What's App Groups reporting suspicous movements of men, usually in white vans but always just failing to capture the child, only added to the paranoia.

    Grew up in the 70s & 80s. It was by no means perfect then, lots of economic and social problems but life was different. Most mothers were homemakers so kids went home after school rather than go to childcare.

    On school holidays, it was a case of up in the morning and out the door playing football, climbing trees etc with friends and your parents weren't too worried once they had an idea where you were.

    Think it made us streetwise and also better socially. Unfortunately nowadays kids are molllycoddled and therefore spend too much time with their parents and do not grow up the same way.

    Lastly, music then was genre defining rather than the bland stuff played on radio nowadays.


  • #33
    road_high
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,876 ✭✭✭✭road_high


    Definitely easier going growing in the late 80s/90s. I see kids nowadays the weight of expectation they are under is massive. They have a full timetable of activities they "must" be involved with awards and achievements to match.
    We could spend half a day whizzing around on (old) bikes etc and no one batted an eyelid. Kids now seem to be fuzzed about a lot more, more monitoring of what they're up to. We were just let off in the main!


  • #34
    corks finest
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,966 ✭✭✭corks finest


    I loved the 70s in Bishopstown Cork, no mun but loads of fun
    Gang of 20+ of us and got on for the most
    All in the same boat,all our parents were from working class backgrounds,bar one so no great expectations,less than 5 went to college ( wasted)
    8 of our gang got married
    Highfield disco slowdancing to Bohemian Rhapsody,,,,,those were the days my friend


  • #35
    ArchXStanton
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,912 ✭✭✭ArchXStanton


    I was a child through the 80s, looking at some of the people I grew up and went to school with there was definitely something wrong with that generation, I dunno if it was the unemployment or general feeling at that time but a lot ended up a little rough around the edges with problems later in life.

    In saying that I don't think I'd like to be young in this generation, it all seems a bit too false and superficial.


  • #36
    theteal
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,593 ✭✭✭theteal


    I'm an '83 baby. All day everyday on the green playing football, chasing, rounders, kick the can etc, etc. There would regularly be 20+ heads available (tweens to teens) for a game of ball, that's when a game of Heads 'n Volleys turned into a full blown 11 a side. I'm not home that often these days but I've not seen anything like that in 15+ years - I can't say I've even seen a small game of ball. Yeah we had an Atari 2600, C64, Mega Drive. . . but we still spent more time outside so I don't know what's going on with kids nowadays.

    The mother would be calling you in at night and you'd be cursing her under your breath - even though it was raining.


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  • #37
    keano_afc
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,711 ✭✭✭keano_afc


    No way.

    Kids today are under all sorts of pressure, and the social media age has made it worse. Along with a growing number of people who try tell them the reason for their mood might be because they were born in the wrong body, its a tough time to be a child.


  • #38
    seamus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 68,190 ✭✭✭✭seamus


    Rose tinted glasses.

    Kids today have a much more open and accepting environment to grow up in. Much less likely to tormented and attacked for daring to be different.

    Every era has its own unique challenges. Social media is one of them, but other forms of bullying existed when we were growing up, ones that schools and adults not only turned a blind eye to, but often promoted and rewarded.

    As a parent the scariest thing about social media with kids is the fact that we don't have the skills to deal with it. If your kid was being subject to some good old-fashioned bullying, then you know exactly what to do. But parents didn't have to grow up with social media so don't know how to protect their kids from it. That's the scary part.


  • #39
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    I think I'd prefer nowadays.. as a poorer family we'd be better off, less chance of corporal punishment, having access to the internet would have helped a lot academically, less Catholic Church influence on our lives


  • #40
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Agricola wrote: »
    Before smartphones and social media children were able to be children and for longer. There was an innocence about it. If you think about the early sexualisation that's happening now whether it be through on demand free porn or young teenagers copying what they see from influencers when it comes to dress, it all serves to shorten childhood. Not to mention the narcissism that camera phones are now engendering in people from a younger age.
    If you forgot about all the actual sexual abuse that was occurring of course, which seems to be the way in this thread, some sort of self selection bias maybe


  • #41
    theteal
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,593 ✭✭✭theteal


    I'm just pondering how my auld fella would answer that question. Same house, same green just 30 years before me. Off to whatsapp I go. . . .


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  • #42
    CrankyHaus
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,281 ✭✭✭CrankyHaus


    seamus wrote: »
    Rose tinted glasses.

    Kids today have a much more open and accepting environment to grow up in. Much less likely to tormented and attacked for daring to be different.

    Every era has its own unique challenges. Social media is one of them, but other forms of bullying existed when we were growing up, ones that schools and adults not only turned a blind eye to, but often promoted and rewarded.


    I was thinking this myself. Everyone remembers the good stuff from their childhood, and I was pretty happy out, but there was bad stuff that isn't tolerated as much anymore. Homophobia was rampant, girls were expected to put-up with stuff that isn't accepted anymore, smoky coal fumes before the ban gave me and my siblings childhood asthma, we had the priest we were planning our communion with changed at the last minute and a few years later I found he'd been outed as a major child abuser weeks before our communion (talk about dodging a bullet).



    Talking to my dad the 50s and 60s sounded much worse; corporeal punishment at a sadistic level, clerical and general child sex abuse insanely common, freezing gaffs, poor prospects. Anyone pining for the 50s and 60s is addled by American internet nostalgia rather than Irish historical experience.


    What the kids have today is different, but hardly worse on balance. I don't envy them, but I don't pity them either.


  • #43
    IrishZeus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,887 ✭✭✭IrishZeus


    Loveinapril wrote: »
    I feel like we got to experience actual childhood, which is a dying concept now.


    This is one of the saddest, but truest, quotes on boards.



    I say that as someone born mid-80's and who now has two young kids. I don't envy them the social pressures they face as teenagers in the years to come.


  • #44
    Agricola
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,547 ✭✭✭Agricola


    riffmongous wrote: »
    If you forgot about all the actual sexual abuse that was occurring of course, which seems to be the way in this thread, some sort of self selection bias maybe

    Across the country, what percentage of 80s and 90's kids were sexually abused growing up I wonder.
    And what percentage of kids growing up today are exposed to porn and the negative influence of social media from a young age.

    I'll bet the former is a small number and the latter is a very very big one.


  • #45
    Portmanteau
    Closed Accounts Posts: 55 ✭✭Portmanteau


    Yeah of course there's gonna be self selection bias. I thankfully didn't know about the apparent rampant child abuse when I was a child. It was only the 80s/90s, not the 50s/60s.
    Loveinapril wrote: »
    I feel like we got to experience actual childhood, which is a dying concept now.
    IrishZeus wrote: »
    This is one of the saddest, but truest, quotes on boards.
    I dunno. I'd say childhood is still childhood, but just with more technology. If anything it could be said that people are more infantilised now. Adolescence to mid teens though - yeah, that's when the technology becomes the problem. I know that there has always been bullying and other pressures, but social media/smartphones/easily accessible extreme porn embody something we have no experience of, and which is absolutely all consuming whether in school or outside of it.


  • #46
    seamus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 68,190 ✭✭✭✭seamus


    IrishZeus wrote: »
    This is one of the saddest, but truest, quotes on boards.
    It's actually complete nonsense.

    There's plenty of evidence that young people are getting to experience longer and longer childhoods when compared to their parents.

    It's typical now for individuals not to need to enter the workforce, move into their own property or pay their own bills until their early twenties. 30 years ago it would be strange to be an 19 year old who wasn't fending for themselves one way or another.

    30 years before that you were sent out to work at 16 unless you were privileged or exceptional enough to attend college.

    30 years before that, secondary school was a privilege and you were set to work before you were even a teenager.

    You so often hear comments about how "kids are being forced to grow up so fast these days", even though the opposite is the case.

    Typically what they actually mean is, "Children are being exposed to sex and death these days a lot more than I was at their age". But that's not a bad thing. We know that introducing these topics in an age-appropriate way from an early stage leads to better choices and better emotional stability when they're encountered as an adult.


  • #47
    banie01
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,909 ✭✭✭✭banie01


    riffmongous wrote: »
    If you forgot about all the actual sexual abuse that was occurring of course, which seems to be the way in this thread, some sort of self selection bias maybe


    Oh all of us! The whole country was being fiddled with by priests, swimming coaches, the weird fella in the Mac....

    The prevalence of sexual abuse by strangers, really needs no be counter balanced against the abuse by "known" perpetrators.

    The church and state home scandals exposed a system of abuse that was institutionalised, cruel and continuing for some.

    That same level of abuse happened, and still happens to people on a daily basis across the country.
    Just that because it's familial, it's not as newsworthy.

    Batter and slander the church and everyone involved in abuse and their mealy mouthed apologists.

    But do not, please!
    Please don't try and portray the actual abuse inflicted on people as being forgotten, or rose tinted overload .

    The same and worse continues to this day, people, young and old are being abused and the numbers in fairness wouldn't bear out the 80's/90's as a golden age of kiddy fiddling

    Rather a time when those who partook in such action had an inordinate amount of influence.
    Be glad that the "institutional" components have at least being addressed in part.

    Let's worry about those kids who are being abused now and stop that, whilst supporting those who have survived past abuse.

    Let's worry that children are able to access and view porn that presents sexual violence and certain other acts as "normal" and leads them to believe that's what "adult relationships" are.

    Kids need to learn the difference between relationships, and fúcking.
    Jesus these days ya hardly even need to go thru the effort of grooming.
    Being a 40y.o uni student and listening to some tinder war stories spouted back both from males and females....

    There is a generation of our youngsters raised towards instant and immediate gratification.
    Of sex acts that, yeah I've done and enjoyed but that were enjoyed in part through sharing of honesty, trust and intimacy with the participant.

    Not as swipe right, I eat ass or any variation of it.
    That may sound a little frumpy, but when sex is thrown around the place as much as it seems to be now.
    Taking a fairly large and vocal cohort of 1st year Uni students and my own fairly straight talking(tho not at all straight) kid as an example?

    There is a problem looming, not with smartphones or entertainment fatigue.
    But with a huge disconnect between the physical aspect of sex, and what actual relationships are.
    With social skills, I'm actually not worried at all they grow, adapt and change.

    But the blasé and transactional attitude towards sex is a worry.


  • #48
    banie01
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,909 ✭✭✭✭banie01


    seamus wrote: »
    It'
    30 years before that you were sent out to work at 16 unless you were privileged or exceptional enough to attend college.

    30 years before that, secondary school was a privilege and you were set to work before you were even a teenager.

    Not even 30yrs ago, I emigrated at 17 in '96.
    seamus wrote: »
    It
    Typically what they actually mean is, "Children are being exposed to sex and death these days a lot more than I was at their age". But that's not a bad thing. We know that introducing these topics in an age-appropriate way from an early stage leads to better choices and better emotional stability when they're encountered as an adult.

    Arrested adulthood, or extended adolescence.
    Very true, well documented and studied.

    Multi-factorial causes and that's even discounting the property market ;)


  • #49
    lertsnim
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,934 ✭✭✭lertsnim


    If camera phones were around when I was a child, I shudder to think. No way would I want to be growing up now. Music was better then too.


  • #50
    Portmanteau
    Closed Accounts Posts: 55 ✭✭Portmanteau


    banie01 wrote: »
    Let's worry that children are able to access and view porn that presents sexual violence and certain other acts as "normal" and leads them to believe that's what "adult relationships" are.

    Kids need to learn the difference between relationships, and fúcking.
    Jesus these days ya hardly even need to go thru the effort of grooming.
    Being a 40y.o uni student and listening to some tinder war stories spouted back both from males and females....

    There is a generation of our youngsters raised towards instant and immediate gratification.
    Of sex acts that, yeah I've done and enjoyed but that were enjoyed in part through sharing of honesty, trust and intimacy with the participant.

    Not as swipe right, I eat ass or any variation of it.
    That may sound a little frumpy, but when sex is thrown around the place as much as it seems to be now.
    Taking a fairly large and vocal cohort of 1st year Uni students and my own fairly straight talking(tho not at all straight) kid as an example?

    There is a problem looming, not with smartphones or entertainment fatigue.
    But with a huge disconnect between the physical aspect of sex, and what actual relationships are.
    With social skills, I'm actually not worried at all they grow, adapt and change.

    But the blasé and transactional attitude towards sex is a worry.
    This. Must be awfully intimidating to some teenagers. It's the opposite of liberated and healthy sexuality imo.


  • #51
    banie01
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,909 ✭✭✭✭banie01


    Portmanteau wrote: »
    This. Must be awfully intimidating to some teenagers. It's the opposite of liberated and healthy sexuality imo.

    Tho my post may be a bit Maud Flanders ;)
    That's a concise and to the point take of it.

    Adolescence is about exploring who one is as a person, sexual, academic, personality.
    Not being given a menu and told to pick. The peer pressure to do, because everyone else is...

    Is IMO at least greater now than it ever, ever has been for youth.


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  • #52
    Portmanteau
    Closed Accounts Posts: 55 ✭✭Portmanteau


    banie01 wrote: »
    Tho my post may be a bit Maud Flanders ;).
    Not at all. It's a very valid concern.


  • #53
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 12,694 ✭ [Deleted User]


    I don't know, I would have liked the better work and education opportunities there are now, but other than that I am not sure.


  • #54
    Obvious Desperate Breakfasts
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,474 ✭✭✭Obvious Desperate Breakfasts


    seamus wrote: »
    Rose tinted glasses.

    Kids today have a much more open and accepting environment to grow up in. Much less likely to tormented and attacked for daring to be different.

    Every era has its own unique challenges. Social media is one of them, but other forms of bullying existed when we were growing up, ones that schools and adults not only turned a blind eye to, but often promoted and rewarded.

    As a parent the scariest thing about social media with kids is the fact that we don't have the skills to deal with it. If your kid was being subject to some good old-fashioned bullying, then you know exactly what to do. But parents didn't have to grow up with social media so don't know how to protect their kids from it. That's the scary part.

    Hahahahahahahahaha!

    No. There will always be bullies. You are absolutely deluded if you think that has lessened.


  • #55
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    banie01 wrote: »
    The same level of abuse? Considering that familial abuse was also prevalent back then why would it be so much higher nowadays to balance out as the same level of abuse overall?

    Yes definitely problems nowadays too, no question.. but for balance also much less masturbation is wrong, periods are to be ashamed of, being gay is downright wrong, women shouldn't enjoy sex and those who do are sluts etc., these were all common attitudes in the 90s


  • #56
    chrissb8
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,224 ✭✭✭chrissb8


    I see kids who are 10 years old with the best clothes, sharp haircut, the latest iPhone and with a north face tracksuit on. When I was 10 I had a torn Dunnes tracksuit at the crotch, going down a hill with two of us sitting on a skateboard en route to death as soon as we hit that bump at the end of the hill.

    I have no idea what that says but all I know is I had much more fun.


  • #57
    banie01
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,909 ✭✭✭✭banie01


    Had a post here, I deleted rather than drag thread off topic ;)


  • #58
    SharpshooterTom
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,017 ✭✭✭SharpshooterTom


    riffmongous wrote: »
    The same level of abuse? Considering that familial abuse was also prevalent back then why would it be so much higher nowadays to balance out as the same level of abuse overall?

    Yes definitely problems nowadays too, no question.. but for balance also much less masturbation is wrong, periods are to be ashamed of, being gay is downright wrong, women shouldn't enjoy sex and those who do are sluts etc., these were all common attitudes in the 90s

    "women shouldn't enjoy sex" "masturbation is wrong" bit of an exaggeration to say these was a commonly held opinions in the 90s, perhaps in the 50s. Nostalgia and rose tinted specs undoubtedly play a part in this thread but there is some weird history revisionism of the 90s in this thread also making out the western world to be like Saudi Arabia back then which is equally inaccurate IMO.


  • #59
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    ThomasFlynn wrote: »
    "women shouldn't enjoy sex" "masturbation is wrong" bit of an exaggeration to say these was a commonly held opinions in the 90s, perhaps in the 50s. Nostalgia and rose tinted specs undoubtedly play a part in this thread but there is some weird history revisionism of the 90s in this thread also making out the western world to be like Saudi Arabia back then which is equally inaccurate IMO.

    We're not talking about the western world though are we, we're talking about last gasp Catholic Ireland in the 90s. I don't know what your younger years were like but there was nothing openly discussed about sex or masturbation in the Ireland I remember


  • #60
    r93kaey5p2izun
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,962 ✭✭✭r93kaey5p2izun


    I don't recognise this 90s!


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  • #61
    SharpshooterTom
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,017 ✭✭✭SharpshooterTom


    riffmongous wrote: »
    We're not talking about the western world though are we, we're talking about last gasp Catholic Ireland in the 90s. I don't know what your younger years were like but there was nothing openly discussed about sex or masturbation in the Ireland I remember

    I actually grew up in England and didn't move to Northern Ireland till 2000.

    However I always thought the 90's in Ireland was a decade credited for introducing a lot of the landmark social changes paving the way for modern Ireland.

    1990 - First woman President who transformed the office
    1990 - rape within marriage finally made a criminal offence.
    1992 - sale of contraceptives deregulated
    1993 - homosexuality legalised
    1995 - divorce legalised
    1999 - Equal Status Act


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